QB contracts have been a consistent part of the NFL news cycle this offseason. Jared Goff and Trevor Lawrence both received huge contract extensions over the last month, each in the $50 million average per year range. There are also a handful of QBs (Tua Tagovailoa, Dak Prescott) who are at various stages of negotiating a new deal. According to one NFL insider, owners have some interesting proposals related to the future of the salary cap as it relates to QBs.

NFL Network's Tom Pelissero made an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show on Tuesday. Pelissero dropped an interesting note on how some NFL owners are discussing QB contracts and the salary cap.

“There has certainly been discussion within the league among certain owners about even the idea of a quarterback cap, that at some point you don't want quarterback numbers to go over a certain percentage of your salary cap,” Pelissero said. “To my knowledge, that hasn't really gained traction, in part because so many teams have paid their quarterbacks.”

It should be no surprise that QBs are the highest paid position in the NFL. The quarterback position is widely regarded as the most important in all of professional sports. With so much of a team's success riding on one player, it stands to reason that they can command a huge salary.

However, some owners appear to disagree with how much of the salary cap pie QBs are eating up.

Here is one example of the disparity between QB contracts and all other positions. Giants QB Daniel Jones — widely regarded as someone New York would like to get rid of — has an average annual salary of $40 million. There are zero non-QBs who make more than $35 million a year in the NFL.

How much cap space do NFL QBs really take up?

Let's take a deeper dive into the numbers.

We'll start with the percentage of the salary cap that NFL QBs take up. This seems to be the real pain point for owners. It is easy to see where they're coming from when looking at team building strategy. It feels counterintuitive that finding and paying a franchise QB can become a burden on the salary cap.

The NFL currently has 11 QBs who make up more than 20% of their team's salary cap at the moment they signed a new contract. They are listed below, per Spotrac, along with their average annual salary.

  1. Joe Burrow – $55 million – 24.47%
  2. Josh Allen – $43 million – 23.56%
  3. Justin Herbert – $52.5 million – 23.35%
  4. Lamar Jackson – $52 million – 23.13%
  5. Patrick Mahomes – $45 million – 22.70%
  6. Jalen Hurts – $51 million – 22.69%
  7. Kyler Murray – $46.1 million – 22.14%
  8. Deshaun Watson – $46 million – 22.09%
  9. Dak Prescott – $40 million – 21.92%
  10. Trevor Lawrence – $55 million – 21.53%
  11. Jared Goff – $53 million – 20.75%

One interesting stat that jumps out when looking at percentage of cap is the gap where mid-range QB contract could exist.

Geno Smith comes in at 18th on the list with $25 million average annual salary for 11.12% of cap space at signing. Jordan Love is next on the list with $13.5 million and 6.01% of the salary cap.

I'm sure that NFL owners would prefer to be able to pay more mid- to low-tier QBs somewhere in that 10% range.

It seems unlikely that we will ever have a QB cap like the one Pelissero described. However, the NFL has made big changes before. The introduction of the rookie wage scale in 2011 had far-reaching implications for rookies of all positions.

It will be interesting to see if this idea gains more traction in the future.